Keeping up with Oregon: USC starts L.A. Coliseum modern...

Designated Read: Alabama is pretty good at football, we think

Nick Saban only yells because he loves you, and also because he is angry all the time. (AP)

• Poll Tide, or something. Alabama and USC have swapped places in the first AP Poll of the regular season. The rest of the top 10, in descending order: LSU, Oregon, Oklahoma, Florida State, Georgia, Arkansas and a West Virginia-South Carolina tie. Boise State disappears from this week's poll entirely, and Notre Dame makes its debut. 'Bama also bounces up to the top of the Coaches' Poll (all together now: "Which We Are Apparently Still Insisting Is A Real Thing"), and Bill Connelly, the smartest football person we know, wonders aloud (well, via a column) why we bother with polling in September. We wonder, too. We wonder a lot. We suppose it has something to do with this.

• Like Saban, like spawn.As if on cue: "[Less] than 24 hours removed from its dominant performance against the then-No. 8 Wolverines, Alabama’s players were called into a team meeting room, where coach Nick Saban essentially told them that they weren’t as good as everyone was saying they were." And let's hear from an acolyte: "'Most teams never reach their dreams because they overestimate the event and underestimate the process,' Dooley said."

• Copyright-infringing trash talk, adieu. According to a billboard in Gainesville, Texas A&M is "The best academics & cleanest program in the SEC." The Aggies' trash talk game is beyond perfect for their new conference, by which we mean it is gleefully inaccurate and broadcast in giant letters. The billboard has apparently already been taken down. BOOOOOO.